If the U.S. Supreme Court agrees to hear Teva Pharmaceuticals USA Inc. vs. Glaxosmithkline LLC, it could be one of the biggest biopharma cases on the court’s calendar in the coming year. But that’s still an if. Whether the patent infringement case involving a so-called “skinny label” makes it to the high court’s docket depends on which interpretation of the underlying question the court accepts.
It was bound to happen someday. With more and more prescription drugs coming to the U.S. market, the FDA is running out of unique combinations for the 10-digit national drug code given to each product.
As part of its ongoing effort to speed drug pricing competition in the U.S. through the development of generics, the FDA is releasing another batch of draft and revised draft product-specific guidances on the design of bioequivalence studies to support abbreviated new drug applications. Among the 30 new draft guidances is one specific to remdesivir, which was approved in October 2020 as a COVID-19 treatment.
The U.S. Federal Circuit’s denial Feb. 11 of an en banc rehearing in a case that could undermine label carveouts and slow the launch of generics is the topic of hallway chatter at this week’s annual conference of the Association for Accessible Medicines.
The process of reauthorizing critical U.S. FDA user fee agreements (UFAs) for drugs, generics and biosimilars took its first step forward in Congress Feb. 3 as the House Energy & Commerce Subcommittee on Health dipped its feet into the new enhancements included in the agreements the FDA negotiated with stakeholders over the past two years.
In keeping with its Drug Competition Action Plan released in 2017, the U.S. FDA finalized two guidances this week focused on the submission and review of generic drugs.
More than three years after tossing a controversial proposal to allow manufacturers of generic drugs to update their labeling independent of the reference list drug (RLD) and promises that it would take a more proactive role in identifying and facilitating labeling updates, the U.S. FDA issued a draft guidance Jan. 25 intended to help holders of abbreviated new drug applications (ANDAs) keep their labels up to date with that of the RLD.
Among the low-hanging fruit for pruning back U.S. drug prices is the development of generics referencing complex drugs, a category that includes drug-device combination products and nonbiologic drugs with a complex molecular base, route of administration or formulation, such as abuse-deterrent opioids.